60 Swiss rural scene: there is no sfumato; meadows are edged absolutely by dense, dark forest. Wettstein's profes- sion has much to do with the ex- pectable beauty of these reiterated landscapes. He is an agronomist, thirty- two years old, and in winter he works at a Station Féderale de Recherches Agronomiques, on an old estate near N yon. In summer, he is out in the alpine meadows, which are his spe- cialty and are not confined to the Alps. Many alpages, as the meadows are called, are rented by herdsmen from local communes, which own them. Farmers and their herdsmen are not always assiduous about keeping the al- pages in good condition and trim re- pair. Cattle wander in to the trees, w here they trample the forests thread- bare, and that is most un-Swiss. Agronomists and others study the situ- ation, decide what space should be for meadow and how much space should be for trees. The neat, absolute lines are drawn with subsidized fencing. I t is an incidental touch in the ap- pearance of Switzerland, where human beings have coiffed nature at almost every altitude-accomplishing things with respect to the original that, truth be told, are rarely an affront. People who paint pictures that look like Swit- zerland are put down as simple- minded roman tic idealists, whereas they actually belong to the literal- statement and compressed-rusticity school. It is possible that people who prefer landscapes wi thou t evidence of mankind have come to prefer them because evidence of mankind is ordi- narily so disappointing. While making their artifacts everywhere attractive, the Swiss have not embarrassed their terrain. If Switzerland is arguably the most beautifully developed landscape in the world, this is so, to some extent, through necessity, because Switzerland is so small; and its size creates a mili- tary problem, for Switzerland has much to hide. Thorn and rose, there is scarcely a scene in Switzerland that would not sell a calendar, and-valley after valley, mountain after mountain, village after village, page after page- there is scarcely a scene in Switzerland that is not ready to erupt in fire to repel an invasive war. "About this we don't talk," a colonel on the general staff said to me one day. "Don't ask me about it. But keep your eyes open. You may see something." One does not have to be trained by the Central Intelligence Agency to see the airstrips like Band-Aids all over the Alps. There is no attempt to con- ceal them. Noone is suggesting they are Autobahns that ran rapidly out of funds. Like the hangars within the mountaIns, further installations are more subtle. In forests are many clear- ings that seem to make no sense. On calendars, they would appear to be al- pages. But there are no cows, no cha- lets, no herdsmen-and no one cuts a tree in Switzerland without a federal permit. Why, then, the patches of clear-cut woods? They are fields of fire. Hidden in the rock behind them are extremely modern cannons trained on something-the mouth of a tun- nel, a pier of a bridge-that might need the instant attention of prepared fire. All calculations are long since logged, and the shells are ready to fly. Thousands of big guns are emplaced in the rock of Switzerland, and, to an extent that is secret, are continuously manned. On the road to Simplon Pass, above Brig-about ten kilometres from the sector of Massy's patrol -a new bridge stands on slim rectan- gular pillars more than four hundred feet above a wide gorge: a curving bridge, of white concrete with con- cealed suspension cables, lovely to be- hold, veering through space, an engi- neering masterwork. It has shortened and simplified the route over Simplon, and, Simplon being what it is, there can be no doubt that the Swiss are ready to dynamite the bridge at any moment, including this instant. The system of demolition is routinely prac- ticed. Often, in such assignments, the civilian engineer who created the bridge will, in his capacity as a mili- tary officer, be given the task of plan- nIng its destruction. Once it is de- stroyed, it must stay destroyed, so there is need for covering fire. The Simplon road, traversing many cliffs, offers so much spectacle that people in au- tomobiles tend not to study the stone in the retaining walls. It is block granite, or something like it, and in places the texture is a little off. One such place is two kilometres north of the high curving bridge. There is no stopping, no shoulder there beside the road, but if you pull off into the re- cesses of the next avalanche shed and walk back you see on close inspection that some of the granite is plastic. A couple of dozen plastic-granite blocks form two removable squares. In effect, they are windows-closed for the sea- son. They look directly at the near end of the bridge. Prepared fire. "Don't ask me about that. But keep your eyes open. You may see something." To interrupt the utility of bridges, tunnels, highways, railroads, Switzer- land has established three thousand points of demolition. That is the num- ber officially printed. It has been sug- gested to me that to approximate a true figure a reader ought to multiply by two. Where a highway bridge crosses a railroad, a segment of the bridge is programmed to drop on the railroad. Primacord fuses are built into the bridge. Hidden artillery is in place on either side, set to prevent the enemy from clearing or repairing the dam- age. All purposes included, concealed and stationary artillery probably num- ber upward of twelve thousand guns. The Porcupine Principle. Near the German border of Switzerland, every railroad and highway tunnel has been prepared to pinch shut explosively. Nearby mountains have been made so porous that whole divisions can fit inside them. There are weapons and soldiers under barns. There are can- nons inside pretty houses. Where Swiss highways happen to run on nar- row ground between the edges of lakes and the bottoms of cliffs, man-made rockslides are ready to slide. Through locked gates you see corri- dors in the sides of mountains-going on and on into the rock, with a light in the ceiling every five metres and far too many to count. There are general hospitals inside mountain rock. There is stored petroleum-at least enough to fuel the completely mobilized army for more than a year, from the first jet aircraft to the last Haflinger. There is food, of course, and, needless to add, munitions. All these things have shelf lives and are regularly sold or other- wise used, while fresh materials are added. There is a Swiss Army bread